Pre-Loppet 2014 Race Report

It's that time of year again folks. Time for Ben's ski
season race reports. Apologies in
advance, this first one is heavy on the word things and light on the picture
things.

Season
Intro

After an epic summer and early fall I think I have been letting my
fitness slip a little bit. A number of factors have been contributing to
this including work and the weather. I'm no wimp and will get out and ski
when it is below zero. Unfortunately it seems that the coldest snaps and illness
happen to coincide with my long training days and as much as I'd like to say I
can go ski for 3+ hours when it is minus 10 or sick, I just can't do it.

Despite mild concern for my fitness, I was pretty excited to get
my 2014 race season started last weekend with the two day Twin Cities
Championships. I have been classic skiing way more than I have in
previous years and I was excited to see if I couldn't hang a little closer to
the competitive field after the first race. Unfortunately Thursday before
the race I woke up with a horrible sore throat. I was in no shape to race
that weekend. The race would have been interesting too as they pulled the
Sunday race up to Saturday and had a one day pursuit. Would I have been
fit enough to race two 10k races 4 hours apart? I guess we'll never know.

So, looking forward I didn't have another
registered race until the Marine O'Brien race at the end of January.
Nope, gotta race before then. Looking at this weekend's race
calendar, the Loppet Foundations Pre-Loppet which I could still get into for
only $22 looked like just the ticket. A competitive field on the first
17km of the City of Lakes Loppet course sounded brutiful.

CyclovaXC and Forest Lake HS Nordic!

Course
History

This course and I have an up and down relationship. I raced the 2010 City of Lakes Loppet the
first year I was getting back into skiing after more than a decade of
absence. I had skied most of the course
except for that first 9km or so which is the par 3 and back 9 and is anything
but easy. I blew up big time. I managed to do it better at the TC Champs
the next year. Then COLL in 2011 I blew
up again. The 2013 TC Champs was
acceptable I think.

Pre-Race

The last few days leading up to the race I was finally starting to
feel better after the week before’s illness.
That is until Friday morning when I had a major allergic reaction to the
antibiotic I had been on for the last week.
Talk about a little freak out when you go from perfectly fine one hour
to completely covered in hives the next.
Thankfully the doc said I was fine to race as it hadn’t affected my respiratory
functions at all, I just looked funny and itched.

The
Plan

So given my state of fitness, past history with the course, my
health, and this being the first race of the year I had a conservative
plan. I wanted to start further back, go
out easy, ski every hill up to the tubing hill very relaxed focusing on good
technique and transitions over the top and then see if I couldn’t push the pace
on the front 9 and across Wirth Lake to the finish.

I got my Fischer Carbon Lite holes skis all greased up the night
before following the Fast Wax recommendations except substituting some Holmenkol
warm something or other for the top coat.
Verdict, fast! It was fast in
general out there, but I was out-gliding most people on the downhills.

What's that Ben Jonjak? Skis, boots, poles? Check.

The
Race

Enough chit chat, lets race.
I was a little tardy getting my drop bag to the truck and therefore a
little late to the line. I planned on
lining up a ways back, but possibly not that far. I was probably 10 rows back and with 15-20
people per row there were a lot of people ahead of me. The start was pretty clean, I only saw one
pile-up. I was double poling for 500m or
so and then barely getting to start skating before we hit an uphill corner that
bottle necked pretty bad. The next few
hills also bottle necked almost as bad. Eventually
the traffic changed from stop and go to just heavy.

Thanks to the rear starting position and some amount of reserve in
feeling pressure to pass EVERYONE in the first 5km, I managed to execute the
pre-race plan that far. With just two
major hills remaining on the back nine I was pretty pleased with how the race
was progressing. It was at this point in
the race that it was starting to string out.
If I had to guess, I probably passed 50+ people between about 1km and
5km. With a little more room I was now able
to start picking people up ahead and start reeling them in and the race got
interesting.

Coming onto the front nine I was skiing behind one guy, there were
two more guys maybe 100m up the trail and then a whole crew of about 10 more
another 100m up. I followed the one guy for
a while, and then bridged up to the next two.
After a short stint behind them, I bridged up to the next group. I slowly picked my way through that pack until
I was about 3rd position coming under Hwy 55. Unfortunately the trail after 55 until crossing
Wirth Lake the first time is very narrow and twisty and I had to ski someone else’s
pace. I did make it to the front just as
we hit the lake.

I made a push across the lake but then bogged down just a bit
climbing the last hill. Two guys got
ahead of me. One opened a little gap and
I stuck with the other guy. Hitting the
lake for the last time we had 500m to go.
I went for it trying to catch the guy with the gap. I almost caught him. Unfortunately I dragged the guy behind me as
well though and ended up getting passed by him as well in the last 50m. Oh well, sprinting for 75th place.

Analysis
and Summary

Immediately
after the race I was fairly satisfied with how the race went. I executed the plan well conserving early and
gaining ground. Later analysis shows
that each 5km was faster than the previous 5km.
All day I was reserving final judgement until I could see the results
and run them through my nerdy race analysis spreadsheet (yes I have one).

After
all of the number crunching I remain pleased with the results.The results are on par with the results from
last year and given the last few weeks I will definitely take that over falling
off last season’s finish.Next up for me will be the 25km Marine O'Brien skate race. The race bug has bit and I'd like to race next weekend, unfortunately I've got plans with the kiddos on Saturday and can't hit the Balsam Branch race. That looks like a fun one and I hear there should be a good CyclovaXC contingent on hand. Hopefully I will see a bunch of you the following weekend down at O'Brien.